Friday, March 4, 2016

A Muslim Mayor of London?

His father, of Pakistani origin, was a London bus driver, his mother a local seamstress.Sadiq Aman Khan was born in London in 1970, lived in a council flat (public housing) and made his way through school until graduating with a law degree from the University of North London. As left-leaning attorney, Khan focused on human rights cases and was eventually elected to Parliament within the Labour Party in 2005. His is a rising star within his party, and he wants to be London’s next mayor. He’s running against a scion of a billionaire family (son of global corporate raider/financier Sir James Goldsmith), Tory Party (conservative) Zac Goldsmith, whom he has labeled a “chronic underachiever.”

Although he has embraced populist issues like freezing Underground (subway) fares, Khan has also moved more toward the center (centre?) of lateby pledging support for airport expansion and oppose attempts impose a ‘Robin Hood Tax’ on the banks (a fee on buying stocks, shares and derivatives publicly backed by the Labour leader last summer).His most interesting positions (to me anyway) revolve around terrorism, online recruitment of local Muslims and protecting his country from the ISIS threat. “The Labour candidate also opens up about fears he has for his teenage daughters over online radicalisation and demands ministers shut down internet providers being used to promote extremism… The comments, which come less than four months before Londoners head to the polls to select their Mayor, are an apparent attempt to win over crucial undecided voters in the capital’s suburbs.” Telegraph.co.uk, February 7th.

Clearly, he’s already got support from the left so he is now courting voters in the middle and even on the right. “Despite being considered on the Left of his party, Mr Khan… uses an interview with the Telegraph to explain why Tories should vote for him… Chatting in a room in Parliament with sweeping views over the capital, Mr Khan attacks foreign millionaires buying up property only to leave it empty and pledges to create a new batch of truly ‘affordable’ houses.

“His definition of a successful mayor, he says, is one who can put aside party affiliations and speak for the city as a whole… ’I am trying to persuade Telegraph readers to look at me, to look at my experiences, to look at my vision for London and what I would do for London,’ Mr Khan says… ‘When you meet and study the best mayors from around the world they are not tribal. What they try and do is to reach across the entire city.’” Telegraph.co.uk

To many Americans witnessing this important mayoral race, the mere thought of a Muslim running for this prominent office has to be viewed as an absurd longshot. For all of our lip service about “equity” and “tolerance” and “freedom of religion,” between Republican statements to ban Muslims from traveling to the United States, determining that escaping persecution for vetted refugees is not enough to allow Muslims to settle here, to the proclivity of too many of our urban police departments to treat black Americans with deep skepticism and second class status (“shooting first, asking questions later”), the thought of Muslim mainstream big city mayor is just inconceivable. Surely, the Brits are no different? Right?

Khan a big player in the Labour Party, having nominated his Party Leader, Jeremy Corbyn. And he is looking pretty good in early polling, even though London has just run through two prior Tory mayors. “Mr. Khan is the bookmakers’ favourite to defeat Mr. Goldsmith…” Telegraph.co.uk. Maybe America just might learn a thing or two about human rights from our British friends. Or maybe we will just continue to become more fearful, more racist, less tolerant and allow ISIS and its ilk redefine what it means to be American.

I’m peter Dekom, and it’s hard to be proud of my country these days as it seems to foster a level of intolerance and bad behavior I have not seen in my lifetime.

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Peter's Bio

Peter J. Dekom practices law in Los Angeles and was formerly "of counsel" with Weissmann Wolff Bergman Coleman Grodin & Evall and a partner in the firm of Bloom, Dekom, Hergott and Cook. Mr. Dekom's clients include or have included such Hollywood notables as George Lucas, Paul Haggis, Keenen Ivory Wayans, John Travolta, Ron Howard, Rob Reiner, Andy Davis, Robert Towne and Larry Gordon among many others, as well as corporate clients such as Sears, Roebuck and Co., Pacific Telesis and Japan Victor Corporation (JVC). He has been listed in Forbes among the top 100 lawyers in the United States and in Premiere Magazine as one of the 50 most powerful people in Hollywood .

Mr. Dekom has been a management/marketing consultant, and entrepreneur in the fields of entertainment, Internet, and telecommunications. As a consultant to the state of New Mexico for almost a decade, he was instrumental in creating, writing and implementing legislation to encourage film and television production in the state and supervised the film loan program portion of that incentive structure until the spring of 2011. Mr. Dekom has also provided off-balance sheet, insurance-backed financing for major motion picture studios.

Mr. Dekom served on the board of directors of Imagine Films Entertainment while the company remained publicly traded and was a board member of Will Vinton Studios and Cinebase Software, among others, leaving upon change of ownership. He has also served as a member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and Academy Foundation, Board of Directors, Chairman (now Emeritus) of the American Cinematheque, and on the Advisory Board of the Shanghai International Film Festival. He recently served on the Board of Governors for the America Bar Assn.’s Sports and Entertainment Law Section, where he often authored articles, delivered lectures and continues to be an active participant.

The Beverly Hills Bar Association honored Mr. Dekom as Entertainment Lawyer of the Year in 1994, the Century City Bar Association accorded him the same honor in 2004, and the Family Assistance Program named him Man of the Year in 1992 for his work with the homeless. In 2012, the American Bar Association, through its Forum on Sports and Entertainment Law, honored Mr. Dekom with its highest recognition for entertainment lawyers, the Ed Rubin Service Award. Author of dozens of scholarly articles, Mr. Dekom also is the co-author of Not on My Watch; Hollywood vs. the Future (New Millennium Publishing, 2003) with Peter Sealey and author of Next: Reinventing Media, Marketing and Entertainment (HekaRose Publishing Group 2014). He has served as an adjunct professor in the UCLA Film School, a lecturer (entertainment marketing) at the University of California, Berkeley Haas School of Business as well as being a featured speaker at film festivals, corporations, universities and bar associations all over the world.

Mr. Dekom graduated from Yale in 1968 (BA), and graduated first in his class in 1973 from the UCLA School of Law (JD). He is married to Kelley Choate, an MBA and former art gallery-owner who evolved into a renowned micro-collage artist in her own right. He also has a son, Christopher (b. 1983), who is a Duke University graduate, a Chartered Financial Analyst, a 2013 Darden (UVa) MBA graduate, and is currently an executive with a Los Angeles-based media and entertainment company. Chris' wife, Stephanie (a 2013 George Washington University MD grad), is a neonatal pediatrics 'fellow' at a major Los Angeles hospital